Tyranny: Coming to a USA near you…

Just some meandering thoughts.

WHY GUN CONTROL?

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. – James Madison, Federalist #46

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are – Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story

Contrast that with

Let’s be honest. Mr. Keyes does not believe in common gun control measures like the assault weapons bill. Mr. Keyes does not believe in any limits from what I can tell with respect to the possession of guns, including assault weapons that have only one purpose, to kill people. I think it is a scandal that this president [Bush] did not authorize a renewal of the assault weapons ban. – Barack Hussein Obama

Bill and I announced a proposal to raise the legal age of handgun ownership to 21, and limit purchases of handguns to one per month. – Hillary Rodham Clinton

Once they disarm the people, they can own the people.

WHY PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION?

When they take your car away and send you to wait in line at the prescribed time for a bus or train, they have taken away your ability to choose when and how you go – they have taken away a personal liberty. They get to decide when you go and where you go and how you get there.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

When they tell you what you can and cannot say in public, they have taken away a personal liberty, and they have vioated the tenet of free speech. “Sticks and Stones”. Yes, words can be painful. However, the “court” of civil opinion is far more effective in controlling speech than any judicial outlet can ever be. Their only goal is to exert power over you, the individual. To usurp your ability to subject yourself to public excoriation, or public adulation over your utterances. They have substituted their control for self control.

PC translations are also pretty damned handy to make their nefarious goals seem ethical, and your ethical goals seem nefarious. Choosing a term to “soften the edges” of what their actual goal is, while putting a hard edge on the opposite stance. Psychology at its best.

ENTITLEMENTS

We speak of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; not the guarantee of happiness. It has always, at least until the 1930s, been considered the responsibility of the individual to attain that happiness; not the responsibilty of those who have made their way to it to provide it to others by threat of government.

THE PRICE OF GASOLINE

First, when I choose to live in Canada, Europe, or some other Godforsaken plot of earth outside the US, then I will care what they pay for gasoline (or anything else, for that matter). Since I live in the US, what is paid for gasoline in other regions is irrelevant. Throwing up the cost of items in a foreign country when its price starts rising here is a favorite ploy of the US media. They want you to be a european. They want the US to look like Europe. I don’t. You shouldn’t, either. You should not care what is paid for items outside the US. You will never hear me say: “Oh, well! At least we’re not as bad as Britain yet.” Instead you will hear me rail against the idiots in Washington who are causing our prices to rise when they need not!

If we are allowed to drill our own, the price of oil will definitely start to fall on international markets. Gas here will likely come down. How far? Well, the Fed’ral Gummint has their hooks into each gallon to the tune of $0.184 per. Most states tack on another $0.20 per. Then there’s all the union wages that go into drilling it, pumping it, refinining it, trucking it etc. Land and mineral leases, corporate overhead, equipment and salaries – oh, and the Fed’ral Gummint has their hooks into the drilling and production costs, too, through licensing fees, regulations, certifications, etc. True for state and locals in other areas well, hey? Anyone who thinks the halcion days of sub $1/gallon gas will ever come back before there is significant reforms of gummint and of labor is… well, they’re smoking some pretty refined crack. Because of the costs imposed by the USofA, it’s state and local governments, and it labor, it is only profitable to drill and produce here when oil is as high as it is. Government needs to back off, big time, in terms of taxation, to be sure, but they are also producing REGULATIONS that make it fiscally irresponsible for any sentient being to want to get into the oil business here in the good ol’ USofA: if the price of oil is not artificially high, it is too costly to produce it here – thanks in full to Uncle Sam and his taxing and meddling.

Much, much work to be done. Personally, I don’t think any of the so-called “tea party conservatices” recently elected to the House and Senate have the stomach for what must be done. I hold out no hope for any positive change in my lifetime…